


Replicate

by Ran_E



Series: Those of Ylisse [4]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe | Canon Divergence, Einherjar - Freeform, Einherjar!Laslow, Einherjar!Odin, Einherjar!Selena, Gaius!Severa, Gen, Henry!Inigo, dancer!inigo, robin!owain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25369228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ran_E/pseuds/Ran_E
Summary: Anankos was defeated and that was the end of it. At least, that’s what they thought, until they realized Odin, Selena and Laslow hadn’t lain down their weapons yet.No, they had turned against them.____An Au-ish story in which Anankos did not summon Owain, Severa and Inigo, but merely made replicas, Einherjars, resembling them. With this final revelation, a journey about finding who they should have been begins.And for that, they will travel to the mysterious homeland none of them would ever talk about.
Series: Those of Ylisse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740103
Comments: 25
Kudos: 46





	1. It might have been the end, but perhaps it’s the beginning?

After a long and exhausting battle, the dragon in front of them, Anankos, has finally been slain. The final blow had been Corrin’s, who had assisted (or, more accurately, lead) with the Omega Yato sword.

The dragon was slain and its remains had vanished with him. Even if his final words, ‘attack them’, had caused for further tension and distrust, they were soon to be proven false. None of his other soldiers had attempted to attack them.

Everything negative they had felt before vanished and made place for a warming feeling of relief. The source of their war of ages had been erased from their lives forever. Peace between Hoshido and Nohr was finally possible.

“Before this battle,” Xander started off, taking the others’ attention away from their own euphoria, “I thought I would die alongside my new-found Hoshidan allies. However, we survived and I see this as a great opportunity to repair the bonds between our countries, Hoshido and Nohr.”

Ryoma had already turned around to face his Nohrian equivalent. He gave him an approving nod. “I agree.” He stated. “This is the beginning of a time of peace.”

Ryoma held out his hand which Xander accepted.

From now on, Hoshido and Nohr had found a new peace. The fighting was over and the time for a new bond between two opposing countries had arrived.

The High Prince smiled. If everything went well, his people would be able to love without the irrational attacks of the Nohrians. It was truly a moment historians would talk about.

It was at that moment Ryoma noticed an odd movement somewhere in the background, accompanied by the sound of metal against metal. He squinted with his eyes to see a Nohrian soldier in the distance unsheathing his sword.

Ryoma approached Xander and leaned in to his ear to whisper something. Xander frowned and nearly pushed him back, but Ryoma did not listen to his gestures. “Prince Xander, what is he doing?”

Xander’s frown only deepened in response and he turned to see what Ryoma was referring to. He immediately recognized the man in the distance as his retainer, Laslow.

Laslow hadn’t been talking to anyone and merely held up his sword in a defensive stance. He was carefully observing his surroundings and something told Xander he was completely isolated from anything that was transpiring around him. 

“Laslow!” Xander called for his retainer but he did not even spare him a single glance. “Laslow, could you come over here?” Once again, the man did not even bother to look over.

Xander’s frown had not left his face. “Please wait here,” he told Ryoma, “I am going over to see what is going on.” Ryoma nodded in response and made his way over to his own retainers, Kagero and Saizo.

Before he could even make it over to his retainer, a scream echoed behind him. In the small moment he had before he turned around, he could see the horror stricken faces of everyone present.

Then he saw it himself: Leo’s retainer, Odin, had presumably sneaked his way to Princess Sakura of Hoshido and had held her at knifepoint with a dagger.

Wait, hold on, what?!

Takumi seemed livid. “Leo what is your idiot retainer doing?!” Leo could not even respond, for he was just as shocked and dumbfounded as the rest of them.

“Odin!” His face was as red as a human’s skin would allow it to be. “What the hell are you doing?!” He held out his hand in a way only a commander would. “This is no time for your jokes. Release her at once!”

Odin did not listen to him. The only thing he did was press the dagger closer to Sakura’s neck. The Hoshidan princess did not dare to say a word, afraid of what the consequences could be. 

Things were already escalating as Takumi had taken the Fujin Yumi in his hands and aimed it directly at the dark mage holding his sister as a hostage.

He did not seem to care about the bow that was being aimed at him. Instead, he only stared as the dagger grew closer and closer to ending Sakura’s life.

“I’ll do it!” Takumi released the arrow and even less than a second after he did, he was thrown to the ground. Surprisingly, in a way, it wasn’t Odin who had done it.

It had been one of the Nohrian princes, Leo.

If Takumi had seemed livid before, now it was ten times as worse. He was ready to push Leo back when he heard a very, very loud sound very close to him. A sword had cleaved a part of the ground just a hair’s length away from him.

He made the mistake of looking into his sister’s direction, who had fortunately been released from Odin’s grasp.

But in exchange, he was roughly grabbed instead. It wasn’t the same Nohrian retainer as the one who had taken his sister, since he was on the ground, bleeding from the wound in his side.

This was another one.

The voices were loud but Xander’s voice clearly echoed above all of them. “Laslow! Stop this immediately!” But just like the situation with Odin before, he didn’t do anything other than stare. There was no anger or sadness or happiness in his eyes. There was nothing.

Now it was Leo readying a spell, from his sacred tome of all things, to help him. Takumi could not name the spell he was preparing to use, but from the small things he had gathered from watching other magic users it had to be ice based at least. Must have been a Nohrian spell.

Leo aimed on his, and with that Takumi’s, torso. The spell flew with a loud sound from his fingers and onto the both of them, making either party unable to move. The youngest Hoshidan prince still had a sword very close to him, but the other man would not be able to move it any closer to him. That also meant that Takumi wasn’t able to move further away either: they were stuck together, enclosed in ice. Unable to move closer or further away. The Hoshidan archer’s instincts screamed to get further away, even when he fully well knew Laslow was in no way able to get any closer to him. He was just as restricted as he was.

In the meantime, Odin had been restrained by his own daughter. He did not have a lot of strength to fight back because of the wound. Despite it being quite severe, he gave it his all to escape Ophelia’s grasp, hurting his own daughter in the process.

Ophelia had grown very pale from the event that had happened and kept anxiously glancing over to the other side of the place they were currently in.

Things hadn’t gone well over there either. Apparently, Selena had tried to attack her own liege, Princess Camilla, and Beruka was trying to keep her from doing anything else.

From a short distance, Caeldori could only look at her mother’s actions. It wasn’t that she wasn’t surprised. She had been in a lot of fights for her young age but when the time arrives to fight your own mother... She couldn’t do that, so she only watched, feeling unable to do anything. 

Selena’s weapon, which was a sword, had already been taken far away from her by Soleil after it had been discarded. Beruka kept Selena’s arms behind her back and Camilla had taken her legs in a hold to prevent her from kicking of injuring anyone.

The three of them had been in a normal conversation when Selena had suddenly, out of nowhere, taken her blade and thrusted it down in the hopes of injuring or, even worse, killing, Camilla.

It was a good thing Beruka was observant and she had taken her actions at exactly the right time. She had taken her sword, kicked it to the side and restrained her fellow royal retainer. No one other than a very well trained assassin would have been able to take her actions as Beruka had done.

Their complete surroundings had grown extremely tense as everyone was carefully looking around them to see if there would be any more surprise attacks, but none followed.

Though a lot of Hoshidans had realized this could not have been orchestrated by the Nohrians in any way, some of them remained sceptical. Understandable though, since the three attackers were all Nohrian retainers. 

One of those people was Oboro.

“See!” She yelled, “We can’t trust those Nohrians.” She quickly made a spin into the other direction and pointed at her liege encased in ice. 

Laslow was trying with all his might to get out while Takumi seemed to focus all of his power into his frown instead. It was a wonder he did not look about eighty years old yet, with a frown that seemed to want to kill the other one.

It would have been an amusing sight if it hadn’t been for the multiple attempts at murder and regicide.

Xander clapped with his hands to garner all attention to himself. “I swear, upon all my honor, that this was by no means orchestrated by the Nohrian army!”

This earned a surprised look from all of his siblings. Xander’s honor was a big deal to him. If he would swear upon it, he really, really meant it. If there had been any doubts amongs the Nohrians, it was no more there.

That did not lessen the fact that it had been Nohrians who had attacked both Hoshidan and Nohrian forces.

All three retrainers were still struggling, but Odin in particular had the hardest time of all three of them. Not that any of them had made any progress, but Odin’s seemed to go backwards. Even if his mind did not want to, his body could not obey its wishes.

“Defeated...” he silently whispered.

And with that final word, Odin vanished.

Quite literally, actually.

If Ophelia had seemed pale before, it was nothing compared to how she looked now. She looked at her hands full of disbelief of what had just transpired: her father had literally disappeared right in front of her. No, he did not die (she hoped at least, but his body itself had completely vanished in thin air, as if it had never been there.

Leo came over to his retainer’s daughter. “What... What is this?” He managed to let a few words escape his mouth, even when his shock was blocking him from doing anything consciously. “A phantom?”

Things were bad, but now they were even worse. The chances were very high that those three hadn’t been with them for a very long time and that these possessed phantoms had infiltrated the group. But when? When they had entered Anankos’ realm, or even earlier?

That left open another question for them: where were they then, if they weren’t here. The worst case scenario seemed to be the option with the highest probability: they had been killed, somewhere, sometime, and no one had noticed.

They could not have been fakes from the very beginning. Odin, Selena and Laslow were too present to be fake. They were too real to be fakes, right?

That’s when Sakura, with her surprise ever present on her face, saw something close to Ophelia, laying on the ground. The mage hadn’t noticed yet.

“Look on your right!” She said, calmly and erratically at the same time.

Ophelia did what she was told to do and picked up a card, which was on the ground on her right. Its contents, a single picture, surprised her even more.

“A portrait... of father... when he was younger?”

Leo seemed to be lost in his thoughts while the in-ice-encased Takumi shot up, or at least would have, if he wasn’t stuck. “Show that to me.”

Ophelia was reluctant but eventually did what was asked if her. The Hoshidan archer couldn’t use his hands to feel it himself so Ophelia held it in front of his face.

“I know what this is. I’m sure we have some of those in the vault under the palace.” A simple statement, but very vague.

Leo came over. “We have some of those too, though they are forbidden to use. But if this appeared when Odin disappeared...”

“That would mean...”

“An Einherjar card? Is this a joke?” Leo finished.

Elise came over too. “What’s that, big brother?”

His mouth twitched. “It is... A card you use to summon a legendary hero from the past.” He did not elaborate, as an inner recognition led him to feel sick.

So Takumi took over for him. For him it was easier to explain, because he had no close ties to those three. “Einherjar are spirits who replicate such a hero with the exact same personality and also appearance. Despite all of that, they are not the real thing.”

For a very short time, it was comepletely silent. The only things that the room echoed were the exhausted breaths of the people in it.

Xander broke the silence. “They were Anankos’, weren’t they? They must have been summoned by them. They’re loyal to whoever summons them.”

Niles took out his bow. “So, am I right to assume they can be summoned again?”

Leo nodded.

And with that, he shot his bow right at Laslow. Takumi flinched, but wasn’t hit. Only Laslow was hit.

“Niles, what are you doing?!”

He winked. “ _I_ am doing you a favor, Lord Leo.” He stressed the ‘I’ and pointed at Laslow.

Same result as before. A card appeared. Soleil was absolutely horrified but took no action other than taking the card and hugging it.

In order to spare Lady Camilla, Beruka took her axe and hit Selena with the blunt side.

Once again, same result. A card appeared. Caeldori curiously picked it up before dropping it to the ground, secretly fearing for what it could do.

Whatever those three had been was gone, or perhaps, they had never been in the first place.  
  


Even if she had just dropped it to the ground, she couldn’t help her curiosity. She blew on the card to get the dust off and held the it in the air to properly examine it further. 

The card, for a short moment, glowed a brilliant white. And there she stood again, Caeldori’s mother, Selena.


	2. She’ll clear a path

Just as quickly as she had disappeared, Selena stood right before them. It felt like she had never left in the first place. Even if this bizarre situation called forth the most ranged feelings within them, her presence did not feel any different from what they had gotten used to. She felt like a normal person, powered by a unique soul.

But what even defines a person? If it acts, feels and thinks like a person, what made it different from any other normal person? Does it even matter how they came to existence? What stopped her from being perceived as a person? 

Even at this moment, Selena wore her emotions on her sleeve. She was confused, as could be seen by her furrowed brows. It was obvious she was weirded out as well, probably because everyone was looking at her, no exemptions. That feeling was recognized by the way she widened her eyes. On top of that, she felt insecure as well. Her pouting lips told them so.

It took a long time, but eventually she spoke up. “What is it, guys? Why are you looking at me like that?” The muscles in her face shifted to show them she was nervous. She twirled with her hair and did not look anyone in their eyes. She avoided every single gaze.

Every single twitch, every single movement of hers was deeply examined. Not because they seemed out of place, but because they were hers. Just because of that. 

None had answered her question and with each passing second, Selena grew more impatient. Each passing second showed the change in her facial expressions from confused to downright offended.

Selena quickly passed over all faces directed at her before finally stating her feelings more verbally. “I’ve had enough! What’s wrong with you!”

Takumi, still encased in ice, decided to stop her one sided conversation– or perhaps half hearted scolding would be a better way to call it.

“You attacked us! What’s wrong with you?!”

Selena faces him with an incredulous look on her face before answering. “Am I attacking you right now? I don’t see the problem!”

This time it was Takumi who was very obviously baffled by her words. His eyebrows shot up in the air and they stayed there. He did not even voice his surprise, he only stared at her, as if saying ‘really?’

Caeldori felt this was her cue to talk. “Why were you attacking us?”

Selena redirected her gaze to her daughter, then smiled at her. She approached her and patted her on her head. “Because I wanted to do so. But I do not want to anymore! You don’t have to worry.”

“You don’t want to attack us?”

“No.”

Caeldori quickly looked at her hand in which she had been holding the card. “Will you ever attack me?”

“Of course not! That’s ridiculous!”

“Mother,” she said, “attack me.”

She reached for her belt and took her weapon; her daughter did the same. “Why are you attacking me?” She asked.

Selena did not even hesitate. “Because I wanted to.”

And that was the moment it became apparent what made Selena different from a person. She had an opinion, things she wanted to say and things she did not want to share, but when she was asked something she would normally never have done, she did so, seemingly convinced that the opinion or idea that was brought upon her was her own.

Did Selena have a mind of her own? Or did she bend her thoughts and opinions to match another’s? Follow them through, thinking they were hers in the first place? It was hard to say, impossible to know without directly asking her. 

Caeldori’s mother did not hold anything back. With her sword, which has materialized with her, she rapidly ran towards Caeldori, to whom she had not even a minute ago vowed to never attack. “Why are you doing this mother! You just told me you would never!”

Selena frowned. “Caeldori, I don’t understand.”

To help Caeldori, Camilla decided to assist the distraught girl. “Selena, my dear, tell me who and what you are.”

Her frown did not leave her face. On the contrary, actually, it only deepened. “I am Selena, a mercenary and retainer serving under you, Lady Camilla.”

Camilla acknowledged the answer. “And Odin? Tell me about him.”

“A dark mage, serving under Lord Leo.”

“Laslow?”

“He is Lord Xander’s retainer.”

Seeing Caeldori was the one who summoned her, Camilla quietly gestured with her hand behind her back for Caeldori to come closer now. A nod was enough for her to understand what she should do.

“Mother. Don’t tell me who Selena is. Tell me who you are. ”

This time, Selena did not answer immediately. Her eyebrows shot up as she involuntarily opened her mouth. “I am–“

But before she was able to answer, she put both her hands in front of her mouth, trying to stop any sound coming from it. Whatever she said next was completely inaudible.

Selena was angry. “What did you give me?!” She loudly stomped with her feet on the ground and clenched her fists to the point where they not only became red, but yellow from the pressure as well. She wasn’t merely angry anymore. She was livid.

“What did you do to me?!”

“Your refusal to answer was an answer too, and I don’t particularly like it.” Camilla took her axe into her hands. “I think a better question would be what you’ve done to my sweet retainer.” The princess held the axe high up in the air, ready to strike at any given moment. “Where is Selena? I will permanently rip and burn you if you refuse to tell me.”

Selena did not seem afraid. She was absolutely terrified by this entire ordeal. Her voice shook with every word she uttered as she stared at the axe that had killed so many enemies, but now it was aimed at her. “Lady Camilla! Wh- What are you doing!” In her stress, she waved her arms as if they would help shield her from her doom.

“Just tell me where Selena is and off you go.”

“I am Selena! Someone, tell me what’s going on, help me!” She looked around her to find her comrades, but surprisingly, for her, they were nowhere to be found. “Did you kill them? You killed them too!”

“And who exactly do you mean by that?”

“Laslow and Odin!”

Camilla seemed unimpressed. What did she mean by that? Was this her attempt at playing dumb? “We’ve already disposed of them.”

Selena looked at her liege as if she was the epitome of evil. With a gaping mouth she stood by, disbelief clouding her mind. One moment, they had rejoiced about the defeat of Anankos, the other she hears they killed her friends. “How could you!”

Camilla paid no mind to it. “Caeldori, please ask her.”

She nodded, “Have you been Selena the entire time?”

Based on her expression, Camilla did not mean that question. Nevertheless, it had been asked.

“Yes!” No hesitation.

Camilla lowered her axe. “I think I find this truth to be even worse.”

Selena’s hands were trembling. So was her voice. “Lady Camilla, with all due respect, but you threatened to burn and rip me! You killed Odin and Laslow!”

Ah, so she was still worked up from the claim from before. Camilla realized that a tad too late, but there was still time to clear that misunderstanding up.

“Oh, of course. Don’t worry, they can be summoned again.”

Both Ophelia and Soleil saw that as a sign to slowly march up to the woman they had always known to be Caeldori’s mother and their own father’s best friend. Both with cards in their hand approached the stage.

Selena, who had turned pale from all the turmoil, looked somewhat curiously over to the approaching girls. 

Both girls handed the objects in their hands to Selena, who carefully picked them up. Ophelia and Soleil were so protective over it, she would handle them with the same care they had given them.

She gasped as soon as she saw what she had been given. 

“This is a joke. It has to be. Einherjar, are you kidding me? I guess the real Odin would be honored, but I don’t like the idea of having travelled with some replicas of my friends for years.” She carefully brushed her fingers over the card, feeling the small depths. 

Ophelia’s small voice echoed through the room “You didn’t know if their fate?”

Soleil smiled nervously. “Do you know yours?”

Caeldori took her mother’s hand.

“You were like this too.”

The weird looks, the frightened stared and the off attitude suddenly made some sort of sense. The realization of what was happening finally dawned upon her and her heart felt heavier than ever. 

The easiest way, for the real Selena, to deal with something she didn’t like was to completely deny it. So of course, that’s how it went for this Selena too. “That’s a lie and you know it! Anankos gave us a way home. He would not have done it if we weren’t real!”

Her breathing became heavier. “And don’t tell them! We’ve been through so much! Laslow especially will break if his struggles turn out to be someone else’s! I’d rather rip his card myself!”

She took his card in her mouth and with her right hand, she threatened to rip it. Odin’s was still in her left. She found herself unable to rip the card.

She inhaled deeply.

“As for me, if I really don’t have a soul like you say, I’ll find one!” She opened up her pocket and took something out of it. At second glance, it looked like an orb of some sort. It glowed a brilliant blue and how it didn’t shine through Selena’s armor in the first place would always remain a mystery. With the orb in her hand, she raised her arm above her.

“Selena, what are you–“ But before Camilla could finish, she was stopped by the clamorous sound of the orb shattering against the floor.

It was only a few moments later that a gargantuan portal, filled with swirls of all kinds of blue and white, manifested on the floor below them.

It was inevitable that, with such a big void in the ground, that someone would fell in. 

All heads turned when a scream echoed from the scission below. Takumi was lucky that, even as immovable as he was, he was barely outside of the portal.

Leo, who had been sitting close to Takumi for examining the Einherjar cards, did not share such luck. The border just a little bit out of reach to try and grasp it. After a second, his scream couldn’t even be heard anymore over the plangent sounds erupting from the portal.

At the other side of the chasm, Soleil had fallen in as well. Ophelia had tried to grab her wrist, but it had been futile. Soleil was long gone.

Selena hadn’t even noticed what had happened on the both sides of the chasm. She was ready to jump in herself.

Caeldori yelled and pleaded for her mother to stay. “Stop it! Don’t take Laslow and Odin with you! That’s dangerous! What if anyone else finds them!”

Selena was smart, perhaps too smart. She wasn’t able to disobey, but she did find a loophole. She still jumped, she just didn’t take both cards with her. One would suffice. Apparently, that was a sacrifice she was willing to make to escape and find a solution to her problem. “I won’t stop! I must confront my fate!”

An Einherjar who disobeys orders is dangerous. Everyone who knew about Einherjar knew that.

And Selena had just disobeyed an order. The moment she jumped in, the portal started closing, albeit slowly.

“Not my brother!” With that exclamation, Camilla ran towards the hole that had taken Leo and Soleil. “Xander, stay here please. I’ll be back before your coronation.”

And with that, everything returned to how it had been a few minutes ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it was understandable for you, because in my eyes, this chapter is an incomprehensible mess. I had a lot of trouble with it.

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t help but feel this is extremely cringy but okay.
> 
> There were three possible ways this story could play out: Nohrians go to Ylisse, Meeting up in heroes or the Einherjars may stay. I’m choosing the first one but I’d like to write small fics for the other two too so that’s why it’s a series.


End file.
